Bumpy Oak Books

**I was provided an electronic copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

4 stars

J. Emery brings their take to a vampire and hunter queer paranormal romance with From the Dark We Came. The story follows Cassian, our vampire newly awakened after having gone into a deep sleep, and Belar, our hunter who has already tried to kill Cassian at least twice. Someone is hiring Belar to hunt vampires who may or may not actually be hunting people, and Cassian wants to hire Belar to hunt someone for him. Belar seems to really be going through a time and I was absolutely here for it.

I was initially concerned by the length of this novel, but Emery managed to make the romance feel as though it was naturally developing and not rushed despite the short page count to work with. If that alone wasn’t a talent, they also successfully avoided the instalove trope and managed some pretty excellent flirting and banter in the process.

If Emery saw fit to write more in this book’s universe, I would absolutely be interested in reading more, but I was satisfied that the ends were tied up enough here to be a good standalone.

This is definitely solid storytelling and I look forward to exploring Emery’s backlist while I wait for their next work.